Police Seize 6 In West Side Heroin Bust

Arrest Warrants Out For 8 More After 5-month Undercover Probe

After a five-month undercover investigation, Chicago law enforcement authorities said Friday they had arrested six people and had broken up a sophisticated heroin-selling market on the West Side.

Ricardo Walls is accused of heading the alleged drug ring in the 4700 block of West Huron Street, Chicago police said.

The ring involved as many as 15 members, and at least once they used a 9-year-old child of one of the members as a lookout and as a money courier, police said.

Police arrested the six people Friday and issued arrest warrants for eight others. Walls, 31, of the 5000 block of West Ohio Street, faces various drug charges that could carry a sentence of at least 6 years in prison, said Chicago Police Lt. Anne Eagan.

Authorities said charges were pending Friday against the others.

The drug ring, which was connected to the Cicero Insane Vice Lords street gang, had been operating for years, Eagan said.

The gang allegedly sold about $3,000 worth of heroin per day, mostly through $10 bags, police said. Eagan would not divulge the sum of drugs and money confiscated in the arrests.

The location near Cicero Avenue brought drug clients from Chicago and the suburbs, Eagan said. The customers often would drive up to the dealers and buy the drugs through their car windows and in walk-up transactions, she said.

"This is a fairly old location and it's been in business for quite a while," Eagan said.

Narcotics and gang investigators worked together on the operation. The team of investigators, called the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Agency, has completed 35 investigations of drug conspiracies since its founding in November 1998, Eagan said.

Eagan estimated the Harrison Police District on the West Side has nearly 200 open-air drug markets. This sting has siphoned a great deal of drugs out of that neighborhood, she said.

"The fact is, we were able to take 14 people off that block and make the neighborhood safer," Eagan said.